The Zombies are Coming

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Stephanie Cox-Williams.

First off, thank you all of the Innovative Theater Foundation for asking me to come over to their sandbox and contribute.  It’s a real honor!

Second, I have not really written or blogged since about April of this year.  I have had a lot of great projects overt the summer Blood Brother’s Presents… and remounting one of my favorite Nosedive shows Infectious Opportunity while also getting to work with a lot of great new people as well.  Artist’s over at the newly formed Anit-matter Collective, a few brief meetings with Ars Nova and then two Fringe Shows.   Needless to say, I had a very busy summer.

Almost all of these shows had one thing in common – gore.  Some semblance of the use of blood and a little bit of gory bits thrown in for good measure. 

With the growing popularity of zombies in pop culture (I should say comeback as they have been very popular on and off for years), a request for services beyond just the use of a blood squib in theater has risen.  Also, with technology being like it is, a horror theatrical piece is now being asked to look like more of what we see in the movies. 

And, by the luck of draw (or may I say a huge thank you to Patrick Shearer and Pete Boisvert for the birth of their horror series), I started to turn my attention to gore effects design.  And, on a budget. 

Wait, I didn’t really mention that did I?

These pieces that are coming out constantly, the majority of them you will not find on Broadway, or even Off-Broadway, but the independent theater side of things.  And, they are expected to look at least as good as some of the first independent features of horror.  And with little to no money. 

As I tell many a collaborator, theater gore is live and has to work every single time it is performed, not just for that one perfect take.  It’s going to cost some money.  And, there are a lot of variables one needs to consider before going down this path of add gore to a show.

Now, I could go into the origins of this type of theater, but I would rather give the audience here what a lot of my collaborators have been asking for-how does one do this trick?   A few solutions to your blood problems….or I mean, theatrical, fake blood problems.   I am going to take the most asked questions I have gotten – starting out with “what is a squib” and deliver it to you. Also, a checklist of things to consider when producing a show with gore. I know, Halloween is soon over.  But, maybe there might be something in here to bring holiday cheer to your next passion play?  

Guest Blogger of the Week: Stephanie Cox-Williams

We would like to thank Christine O’Grady for blogging for us, especially right in the middle of rehearsals for her production of Iron Curtain. 

And we have a real treat for you this week as our guest blogger is Stephanie Cox-Williams.

Stephanie Cox-Williams is currently Company Manager of Nosedive Productions.  She is an Actress, Special/Gore FX Designer, Director and Fight Choreographer for Independent Theater.  Acting credits include: Actress B in in the great expanse of space, there is nothing to see but more, more, more (Matt Freeman/the Brick), Dolly in Final Girl-The Blood Brother’s Present…Freaks from the Morgue, Grandma Blood in The Blood Brother’s Present…Pulp, Flora and Mother in The Little One (Nosedive Productions), Gorman in Starboat (Nosedive/Vampire Cowboys-Saloon), Louisa in The Fantasticks; Film: Girl in Houseguests (Broken Windows Productions).  Special/Gore FX credits include: Theatre – Zombie Wedding (RC Staab/The NY Fringe), Death Valley (Antimatter Collective), The Blood Brother’s Present…Anthologies, The Little One (Nosedive Productions),  Neighborhood 3 (SPF); Film –Houseguests, evermore and Monday (part of Sinister Six Must Be Destroyed festival), named "Queen of Gore" by the NY Press in 2009 and the “Tom Savini of Off-Off-Broadway” by the NY Times.   Director credits include: Various Shorts for The Blood Brother’s Present…Anthologies, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Barefoot in the Park Fight Choreography: Senile Agitation (The Draft Festival), His Beauty (Planet Connections), Room With No View (The Blood Brother’s Present…The New Guignol), The Story of Icarus Phoenix (Fight Fest 2009). She has she received a BA in Theatre, a Musical Theatre Conservatory degree and a Masters of Art in Educational Theatre.  She has started and will hopefully someday complete her epic story of Icarus Phoenix and the Zombie War, cause, you know, there aren’t enough theater pieces about Zombies out there.

I Heart Week Three

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Christine O’Grady. 

I'm about to enter my favorite part of the rehearsal process: Week Three. I LOVE Week Three. 95% of my choreography is up on its feet, and now it's time to finesse, make funny with the actors, and clarify the storytelling. I always feel a huge sense of relief when I get to this point. For me, the rough draft is always the hardest part, and once I get past the first pass, the fun begins. If I remember correctly this is the opposite of how I used to feel. I used to love "making it up" but have trouble with being tough on myself and throwing old ideas away. Now I feel liberated when I cut that move that's been gumming up the works or giving the actors trouble.

I'm currently working with an ensemble that has been so super diligent about drilling sequences and nailing the details, and I have a feeling that this is going to make this week even more enjoyable. It's so useful for me to sit back and see a clean presentation of what I have given them so far, rather than say, maybe when it's cleaned it will be what I'm looking for. We're also at a point where Cara, the director, can watch a sequence and say, "you know, I think the point we're missing is this...", or "you know what would be funny to include here...?"

I find that week three is one of the most collaborative. We've all had some time with the material, we have a pretty good sense of the style we're going for, and we still have a little distance from the pressure of tech week looming over our heads. I'm really looking forward to deepening the work we've accomplished thus far and seeing what kind of personal touches continue coming from the actors, and other people in the room. LOTS more work to do, but rather than trying to choreograph every moment of every song, this week I can agonize (in a good, productive way) over those moments that aren't quite landing yet. To me Week Three is "make the play better week" and no matter what show I'm doing this is always my favorite part. 

Cossak Choreography a Click Away

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Christine O’Grady. 

Cossak dancing? Check. Russian soldiers' marching technique? Check. Busby Berkley? Cyd Charisse? Fred Astaire? Check. Check. Check. What did we do before YouTube? I've been thinking about this a lot lately as I circle back to a project that I first worked on back in 2006, before countless videos were a click away.

I'm choreographing a musical for Prospect Theater Company called Iron Curtain, which is primarily set in Russia during the Golden Age of musicals in America. This is my second time mounting a production of it and the director (Cara Reichel) and I were really interested in doing it bigger and better than last time. As I was reviewing my old choreography, which, at the time, I remember being quite proud of, I realized how little Russian influence there was on the musical numbers that take place there. When I think back to why, I realize part of this had to do with the fact that the show was being completed while we were in rehearsals (you gotta love new work!), but video research of this magnitude was also far more daunting five and half years ago than it is now. Now I can spend an afternoon watching hundreds of sources, and because of this, hopefully, I can anchor my work more specifically.

There's not enough hours in the day to take classes in and become a trained expert on every kind of dance I may need to reference for a musical I'm choreographing, however with the explosion of available videos on YouTube I'm finding that referencing styles of dance that I have never trained in, for example Cossak, has become both manageable and thrilling. Sometimes these videos just jog my memory, but other times I find the perfect trick or traditional step to integrate--and that's when I love this the most. In the first big musical number in Iron Curtain, The Ministry of Musical Persuasion, five of my favorite parts have been inspired by videos of Russians dancing that I stumbled across. It goes without saying that I am not talking about plagiarizing someone else's work but when it comes to comedic historical and cultural references some help has been helpful, and for this, I'm very grateful to YouTube as of late.  

Guest Blogger of the Week: Christine O’Grady

Thank you Jeff Lewonczyk for your super awesome posts last week.

We are very excited to welcome this week's Guest Blogger, Christine O’Grady.

Christine O’Grady is an NYC-based Director/Choreographer. She was the Associate Choreographer for the Tony Award-winning revival of HAIR and its First National Tour and was the SSDC Observer on Legally Blonde. Off-Broadway, she contributed choreography to The Glass Menagerie (Roundabout) and The Boys in the Band (Transport Group), and provided musical staging for Signs of Life (Amas). Recent NY: The Drowsy Chaperone (Gallery Players, IT Award: Outstanding Choreography), The Human Comedy and Children of Eden (APAC, IT Nom), and Once Upon a Time in New Jersey (Prospect). Regional: Mark Taper Forum, Barrington Stage Company, Berkshire Theatre Festival. This fall she has been assisting Choreographer Denis Jones on the Broadway Boys’ appearances on "The Rosie Show." MFA: Theatre (Directing Concentration) from Arizona State University. Member: SDC.

An Open Letter to My Six-Month-Old Son

Contributed by Guest Blogger of the Week, Jeff Lewonczyk.

 Dear Dash,

By the time you are old enough to read and understand this, it will embarrass you terribly. I console myself with the fact that I’ll have embarrassed you many times by that point, and that there will still be much more embarrassment in store before this thing is over.

So I wanted to talk to you about the fact that you’re a theater child. We’re hoping against hope that, after a childhood playing with your toys and doing homework in the corner during rehearsals, surrounded by actors, props, costumes, giant puppets and forms of make-believe held together with spit, glue, tears and more glue, you’re going to rebel by joining the football team, heading to business school and becoming an investment banker. This would be great, as it would ensure us support during our twilight years, but I remain skeptical about this projection. 

Putting aside the fact that producing theater is more detrimental to your mental health than your most junked-up, home-cooked bootleg amphetamine derivative, thereby rendering one unfit for serious work, there’s always the possibility you might LIKE theater. Even though you’re barely six months old, you’ve already been to several plays, and you’ve cried about it less than many grownups I know. You’ve sat through readings and rehearsals, load-ins and load-outs, production meetings and cast parties. Maybe this is early exposure will prove to be a vaccination that will give you immunity; we can only hope.

However, there are also negative signs. You’re a “people baby,” thrilled to meet new people and spend time in crowds. You interact spontaneously and with great bravado, like a natural-born actor. You have a keen eye for whoever’s paying attention to your antics, and somehow you always manage to know when there’s a camera pointing at you. You throw yourself around like an acrobat, and you’re already displaying a penchant for verbal gibberish. This sets a poor precedent.

However, it’s the reaction you provoke in other people that bodes particularly dark tidings. No one has yet complained that we’ve dragged you into a theatrical context – on the contrary, our friends and collaborators seem to love having you around. You energize us all with your youth and promise – two things theater folk can’t seem to get enough of, regardless of the physical age of the person presenting them.  We’ve brought you to not one but TWO NYIT Award events – this year’s nomination party and awards ceremony – and all we got were smiles and goo-goo eyes, as if you somehow BELONGED there. Shirley Knight passed you in the lobby and said, “Welcome to the world, little one.” You’re doomed.

The fact is, since we’re talking about so-called “indie theater,” the circumstances are even worse than they would be if we were straight-up professionals. If we were jobbing gig to gig, or if we were working in a big theater with lots of bosses and stuff, we probably wouldn’t be able to drag you into all of our projects. But by self-producing, we call the shots, and if that means you’re not part of an art form – you’re part of a community. And community is way harder to wash out of your hair than a mere profession (or gum).

If you end up discovering as you grow older that you’re a theater person like your parents, don’t blame us entirely. Sure, there’s probably a genetic component – but the real culprit here is Society. Any perverse subculture that allows people like us to continuously mount fictional shams for the applause of deluded crowds and then drink excessively in celebration deserves to discover that its children have been corrupted by the same disease they can’t muster the willpower to overcome. Any group of people that doesn’t turn parents like us in to the government but rather encourages and coddles children with songs and stories and kisses rather than stern lectures about the world economy deserves to spawn dreamy-eyed fools who claim to see realities that may or may not actually be there, and to rave about these realities to their fellow man without any guarantee that they’ll be understood or even listened to. In a word, artists deserve to have artists.

So if you end up exhibiting a propensity to write down your conversations with your imaginary friends, well past the age when it’s considered normal to even have them – if every night at story time you insist on reading Goodnight Moon to us and asking for notes afterward – if, instead of simply playing with your action figures, you tell people you’re “blocking them” – well, we have no choice but to go along with it. As much as we’re hoping that you’ll turn out to be someone rich and powerful and important, we’re already resigned to the fact that you might turn out to be just like One of Us. But don’t worry, son – I promise we’ll love you anyway. No matter how embarrassing we are.

Sincerely,

Your Papa